Family sparing with the truth

[ptjw7]

I finally got my microfiche of Ugley, essex and cannot find my 2X ggf birth or baptism!
So I tried for a marriage in Stansted as thats where the 2X ggm appears to have originated from(from 1851 census) and have found that but no record of 2x GGF in Ugley.
I can only assume who ever filled in the form just guessed! or do they just lie!!

Peter

 

[leefer]

A touch of both i should imagine Pete.

 

[Guy]

I finally got my microfiche of Ugley, essex and cannot find my 2X ggf birth or baptism!
So I tried for a marriage in Stansted as thats where the 2X ggm appears to have originated from(from 1851 census) and have found that but no record of 2x GGF in Ugley.
I can only assume who ever filled in the form just guessed! or do they just lie!!

Peter

Why should it have been either.
Consider that there is no requirement for any child to be baptised.
Even when a child is/was baptised there is/was no requirement to register such baptism in a parish register.
The child could simply have been baptised at home by a layman.

Remember parish registers only contain those baptisms carried out in the church and those which have been notified to the clergy.
Cheers
Guy

 

[dochines]

I agree there are other possible explanations as well. You should search all the adjacent parishes as well as sometime the parish church was unavailable and other nearby churches helped out. This was paricularly true if there was for example a cholera epidemic at the time ormore mundane reasons like the chuch being repaired or the vicar being ill or otherwise absent.

Mis spellings resulting from mis hearing are also very common. don't give up she will be there abouts somewhere
dochines

 

[leefer]

Why should it have been either.
Consider that there is no requirement for any child to be baptised.
Even when a child is/was baptised there is/was no requirement to register such baptism in a parish register.
The child could simply have been baptised at home by a layman.

Remember parish registers only contain those baptisms carried out in the church and those which have been notified to the clergy.
Cheers
Guy

Very true....but the set of circumstances you have listed were not the norm in those days....most children were baptised by the church...the poor even more because of there closeness to the church/workhouse etc.
And i would as a rough guess would estimate that 99 out of 100 baptisms would have been registered in a parish register....whether baptised at church or at home.

Thats not to say your points are not valid...just not the norm

 

[ptjw7]

If 2XGGF wasnt baptised then he can only have got religion himself as all his children were baptised in Ugley.
I will have to have another look at the records and search wider of the presumed dob!
Always assuming I can read the vicars writing, some were meticulous writers but ... others well hardly all that literate... or were they just not that bothered!!!
peter

 

[dochines]

The other irritating prblem can be the gap between birth and baptism. can be a few days or weeks, often about 3 months, but known to be anything up to 18 years with baptism and marriage coming together!!

dochines

 

[duckweed]

I have a relative who was born in Bedfordshire but baptised in Staffordshire where the grandparents lived.

Some census records have her as Bedford some as Stafford (she lived in Stafford for a while after her baptism.)

I have many similar cases especially of first born children being born one place and baptised another.

Possibly because there was a wealthy relative who was godparent.

 

[Guy]

snip
And i would as a rough guess would estimate that 99 out of 100 baptisms would have been registered in a parish register....whether baptised at church or at home.

snip

I would suggest from various studies I have done over the years the figure could be as low as 80% in some areas.
Much of course depends on the timescale & location and the figure drops drastically through the 19th century with the advent of civil registration.
Cheers
Guy